A Kim Il Sung statue in South Hamgyong province | Image: NK News
This month, North Korea commemorated the 28th anniversary of founder Kim Il Sung’s death, with his grandson and current leader Kim Jong Un paying respects to his embalmed remains at Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
However, for the conspiracy-minded, a question lingers: Who was the real Kim Il Sung? A persistent rumor claims that Kim Il Sung the Manchurian partisan and Kim Il Sung of North Korea were, in fact, two different people.
This month, North Korea commemorated the 28th anniversary of founder Kim Il Sung’s death, with his grandson and current leader Kim Jong Un paying respects to his embalmed remains at Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
However, for the conspiracy-minded, a question lingers: Who was the real Kim Il Sung? A persistent rumor claims that Kim Il Sung the Manchurian partisan and Kim Il Sung of North Korea were, in fact, two different people.
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Fyodor Tertitskiy is a leading researcher at Seoul’s Kookmin University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Seoul National University and is the author of several books on North Korean history and military in English and Korean.